meridian_rose

For the legendland review challenge. In which I glare at the writers for their treatment of magic.

'Elixir' turns up the volume on the archetypes with a scene very similar to 'Star Wars' where Zedd tries to teach Richard to use his Seeker powers while blindfolded. Even Buffy had to do this under Giles's tutelage so it's as much a rite of passage as it is learning a useful skill. Also, potential foreshadowing for Richard being blinded later in season two? I doubt it, but still...

We meet another wizard, Jeziah, which ought to be awesome. He's also a person of colour, a relatively rare thing for someone with a large part to play in an episode, outside of Chase. Jeziah is also revealed to be, if not evil, incredibly misguided. For me, his taking of Zedd's magic via the Quillion crosses the line. This is disappointing. The next wizard we see is Giller—also evil. I'll come back to this in a moment.

There's an attempt made in this episode to discuss magic as being natural or unnatural, a curse or a blessing. "Magic isn't good or bad," Richard concludes. "It's complicated." That I can accept.

That said, I disliked much of the elixir plotline for it's portrayal of magic:

Magic as a metaphor for drug use. This is always a problematic trope for me, since magic is for me spiritual in nature and insisting it's illicit, dangerous, and/or addictive, like cocaine or some such is rather offensive. It's especially disturbing given our cultures current insistence that abstinence treatments are the only option and what that means for those 'addicted' to magic. When Zedd tells Jeziah he'll "never have the powers of a wizard again" it's clearly meant as a punishment as much as it is a means of preventing Jeziah from causing further mischief.

Magic as only for the Chosen Few.
"I was born with this power," Kahlan huffs, "I didn't buy it in a tavern." Her Confessor powers and Richard's Seeker abilities are mostly okay because they're born with it and it's not a choice.

There's meta I want to write prompted by an article I read entitled 'When Did Magic Become Elitist'. At the crux it points out that rather than people choosing to study magic, increasingly fiction has magical abilities being innate eg 'The Secret Circle', 'The Vampire Diaires', 'Merlin', 'Harry Potter'. Some of this can, admittedly, be attributed to magic being a metaphor for sexuality, especially gay/lesbian sexuality. This ties into the 'not a choice' narrative.

Willow from 'Buffy' is an example of someone who trained in magic while her girlfriend Tara is an example of the latter (and Whedon's treatment of magic could be an essay in itself) but in 'Legend of the Seeker' magic is something you are born with, like Zedd, Shota, and Darken. The only way to use magic if you don't have it in your blood is to 'ingest' it via elixirs, or from a stored Han in a Quillion or similar. People using magic this way are seen both here and, given Nicci's later actions, to be largely reckless and irresponsible. In fact, most people are seen be reckless with magic, all except Zedd of course.

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What I did like about this episode? Zedd. In the absence of so much as a glimpse of Darken since 'Destiny', Zedd was still my major reason to keep watching, and this episode didn't disappoint on that front. And Jeziah until he crossed the line. Since Jeziah didn't die, there's no reason he couldn't have returned later—maybe Nicci could have found a way to remove his Rad'a'Han. I also liked the 'Star Wars' scene and Zedd's commentary along with Richard's assertion that Zedd is just making up the Wizard's Rules.

Rating: 2.5